December 12, 2007

More on the Jamie Leigh Jones Case

I knew I'd take a ton of heat for having the audacity to say that maybe we shouldn't conclude that all of the allegations made by Jamie Leigh Jones are primae faciae true. I have taken a lot of heat for it.

But I think if there's anything the Duke Lacrosse case taught us is that just because somebody claims rape, that doesn't necessarily make the charge true. Neither does it make the charge false.

As I stated in my earlier post on Jamie Leigh Jones:

The real culprit here may be the Blotter. The piece is straight advocacy. And straight advocacy pieces beg to taken to task....

Is the story true? By simply telling the story from the victim's perspective, then aren't we doing a disservice to those she is making the allegations against?

In what the Associated Press described as a preview of allegations to air on “20/20” next month, ABC News may have exaggerated some elements of the story for dramatic effect while downplaying other facts....

There is also the issue of a serious discrepancy between The Blotter story, the civil case documents, and Jones’ own account on The Jamie Leigh Foundation’s web site as to what happened to the rape kit collected by U.S. Army medical personnel in the wake of her assault.....

Absent from the original or amended filing, however, was anything that could be construed as a claim of the rape kit being handed over by U.S. Army medical personnel to “KBR security officers” as alleged in The Blotter report.

Never fear, PJM backed up the original time line here.

Bob also takes to task what I thought was one of the odder parts of the story. The Blotter reports:

In the lawsuit, Jones also says, after the rape, she was held in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door.

Immediately following her physical examination, she was placed in a trailer with a bed, a shower, and a sink, but without a television, and was refused phone calls to her family despite repeated requests, which amounted to a false imprisonment;

What comes to mind immediately is the allegation that KBR guards kept Jamie Leigh Jones under lock and key shortly after the alleged rape. Perhaps there is an alternative explanation to intimidation? Maybe they were trying to protect her?

I dunno. Like I said, ABC's The Blotter story was so one-sided and inflammatory that there's really no way to separate the facts of the case from hyperbole.

Again, I wrote:

What if the allegations aren't true? What if some of the allegations are true, but some aren't? What if all of the essential allegations are true, but they are being misrepresented.

What is clear to me is why ABC has taken up the case in such a crusading manner. It's the perfect victim meeting the perfect villains.

Nearly every villain in the left's panoply of villains is included in the story: Halliburton, KBR, the military, the Bush administration.

And the perfect victim: rape victim, victim of Bush administration, victim of Iraq war, victim of private military contractors.

It's just too perfect. At least the way The Blotter exclusive is promoting the story.

Read the rest of Bob's story here.

UPDATE: I should have clicked on over to Michelle Malkin's first. Rookie mistake.

She links to this piece from Overlawyered which deconstructs the lawsuit. Read it all.

UPDATE: There really are a lot of retards out there. Just read the comments.

Who's alleging a conspiracy here? It's not me. It's Jamie Leigh Jones, her attorneys, and ABC News.

Do some of you even know what a conspiracy is? When you simply repeat the allegations made by an attorney that isn't a conspiracy--it's just bad reporting.

Claiming that Halliburton, KBR, the State Department, and the U.S. military are covering up a gang rape---that is a conspiracy.

Jesus H. Mary & Joseph some of you are idiots. I'm guessing mostly John Cole's readers.